Mom’s home! I move the living room curtain and I look out. I see my dad helping my mom out of the car. There is no baby.

I am seven years old and hearing that this baby will not be home for five more days because he has jaundice, stuns me.

What? A mother coming home from the hospital without her baby? I’ve never heard of such a thing!

It’s funny how I remember the day my brother, Benjamin was supposed to come home but didn’t, but I can’t remember the day he actually did come home.

My dolls soon pale in comparison to this live baby.

When I got a little older, I was allowed to change his pamper, dress and comb his hair.

Once when we were living in Lathrop, California, I got him all dressed up and took him two houses down to visit Blanche, an elderly lady. We didn’t stay long. Would you, if you were given oatmeal cookies instead of chocolate chip ones?

By then I was around eight or nine and Ben couldn’t have been older than two. I loved Ben and was a proud older sister…..

We gather together in the family room, and we pray, asking God for a safe trip.

Then my dad, because it’s raining and there’s mud, picks me up first and carries me out to our motorhome. I am wearing a nightgown and holding a brown paper bag filled with my Barbie doll stuff. He deposits me and makes a U-turn for the next kid.

Great. Because it’s dark outside and I’m only nine, I am afraid. I look out the window and I am able to see through our house’s living room window, the rest of the family.

After what feels like forever, my dad comes carrying Priscilla but because I’m the one that’s a year older, this is not tidings of comfort and joy. He deposits her and makes another U-turn.

Finally, we are all in and on our way to Phoenix, Arizona! There is much excitement but it’s after nine, I feel sleepy and decide to go to bed right away.

I pick the lower bunk on the left-hand side, and I fall asleep…..

I wake up. Sort of. I feel like I’m in a fog, but I know that I’m in a hospital room, laying on a hospital bed. I fall back asleep.

I’m awake again and there is a tray of food in front of me. I try to eat but I feel too nauseous, and I stop. I feel bad about this, thinking that I’m wasting food my dad has to pay for.

There is a small television sitting up high in a corner and I think the Wizard of Oz is on. I don’t know how I know this being that I have never seen it and I don’t know how I know that we have been in an accident.

I haven’t seen my parents but I’m at that age where moms and dads don’t die so I believe they are alive.

I’m worried about Ben.

Jon, Priscilla and Andy, no. I figure if I’m alive, those chumps must be too.

But Ben is only two…

Priscilla is climbing into my bed. Ah, Priscilla! It’s good to see you. How nice of the nurse, unless this is all your doing. Please talk to me. Talk about Ben to me. Talk about Ben in the present tense so I’ll know he’s alive.

But she doesn’t and then she’s gone, and I was too afraid to say his name first. I was afraid if I said his name first and was told he was dead, that somehow this would feel worse than taking it in with just my eyes.

I knew then that I would have to wait until I saw my mom and dad. They would have him with them if he was still alive.

The nurse tells me I have to take a bath. She takes me in a wheelchair to a different room.

She tells me I have to wash all the glass off and this surprises me because I don’t see any and I’m not bleeding anywhere. She tells me she will be back.

I feel weak and my little brain is still foggy, but I can’t wait to be in this white tub that is more than halfway full of water.

I am not able to stand up straight. One of my knees is sticking out and so my leg reminds me of the number seven, but I take this number seven and I carefully get in. It amazes me that the nurse could know I love super-hot water.

I finish and I wait for her.

It is quiet all around me and so I think, and I wonder. I know that we have been in an accident, but I don’t know whose fault it is or how it happened.

I know Priscilla is alive, and so is Jon and Andy. I saw Jon and Andy, but they didn’t see me. Jon’s head was swollen but Andy looked like his six-year-old self. (I will find out later that Andy flew over barbed wire and for this stunt, received over three hundred stitches on his left side upon arrival, while awake. The hospital staff was afraid to put him under, afraid that he wouldn’t wake up. My parents heard him screaming.)

I still haven’t seen my parents, but I still believe that they are alive.

The water has cooled, and I wonder if the nurse forgot about me, and I wonder about Ben. He is only two.

I’m going home. Jon, Priscilla, Andy, me, we are all going home!

I am in a wheelchair, and someone is taking me to my parents. I’m weak, my head is foggy, but I keep my eyes open. Your eyes don’t lie, and I have been waiting for this.

I see them. They are looking at me. It’s my dad and standing next to him, holding his hand, is Ben.

*On March 18, 1983, around 3 a.m., near Avenal, California, a semi rear-ended our motorhome. Witnesses said it rolled three times. It landed upside down and faced the opposite direction. Everyone was thrown out, no one was killed. Ben didn’t have a single scratch.

**March 18, 2023 will mark 40 years since the accident. As I write this, we are all still among the living and God is still good.

~missy salcido wead